This invention relates to electrical connectors and, more particularly, to a connector which aligns the insulated conductors of a multi-conductor cable with insulation displacement contacts in a minimal amount of space and provides partial strain relief to the conductors during the assembly operation.
In the past, the connection of a wire to a contact terminal was conventionally done by means of a crimping operation. This operation requires that the wire be trimmed, stripped of a predetermined length of insulation at its free end, placed next to the contact terminal, and then folding the crimp tabs of the contact terminal over the bare wire. It is readily apparent that this connection procedure involves a large number of steps and requires precise positioning. When a multi-conductor cable is terminated to a connector, these steps must be repeated for each and every one of the conductors. To alleviate some of these shortcomings, in recent years the use of insulation displacement contacts has become increasingly popular. Such contacts generally have at one end thereof an insulation displacing part which has a longitudinal slit into which an insulation covered conductor is press fitted. The edges of the slit displace the insulation and make contact with the underlying wire. While such a contact is generally satisfactory in an electrical sense, it suffers from the disadvantage that it does not achieve, by itself, a good mechanical bond. Accordingly, the mechanical bond between the conductor and the contact terminal must be attained through some independent means.
The present invention is particularly concerned with an in-line plug connector having insulation displacement contacts for terminating a multi-conductor cable. With such a connector, movement of the connector when being mated with or separated from a complementary mating connector is in a direction generally along the length of the cable. Those of skill in the art will recognize that in many applications the internal space for terminating the wires in an in-line plug connector is limited when compared, for example, with a plug connector which is offset 90.degree. from the cable direction. It is therefore a primary object of this invention to provide a connector of the type described which does not require much internal space for terminating the cable conductors.
In an in-line plug connector of the type described, if during the assembly operation the cable is pulled before the primary strain relief is effected, this can adversely affect the insulation displacement contact terminations. It is therefore another object of the present invention to provide a connector wherein partial strain relief is provided during the assembly operation.
Connectors typically include dielectric insulating housings for holding the contact terminals. However, they also typically include a metal shield surrounding the housing. As discussed above, space in an in-line plug connector is limited and therefore it is often not possible to have sufficient room within the metal shield to provide insulation for separating the exposed wire ends of the cable conductors from the metal shield. It is therefore a further object of the present invention to provide a connector of the type described wherein the exposed wire ends of the cable conductors cannot contact the metal shield.